Ernest Lubitch was a brilliant movie director, immigrant from Germany, who had a way with telling a comedic film. To Be or Not To Be, which debuted in 1942, is a fine example of his work, a movie that finds comedy gold in the errors made by the main characters. The cast includes Jack Benny, Carole Lombard, Robert Stack, Lionel Atwill, and character actors Felix Bressart, Sig Ruman, Tom Dugan, and Stanley Ridges. Jack Benny plays Joseph Tura, the head of a Polish Acting Troupe. He is a hammy actor, and with his huge ego, he thinks he is as good an actor as Laurence Olivier. Carole Lombard is his wife, Maria, also a member of the troupe. She tolerates her husband and unbeknownst to him has recently begun seeing a dashing Polish pilot, Lieutenant Stanislov Sobinski, played by Robert Stack. Whenever the troupe rehearses Hamlet and Joseph…
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